US shooter kills at least four at Mormon church in Michigan

At least four people have been killed and eight others injured in a shooting and fire at a church belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Michigan in the United States, according to police.

The suspect, named as 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford from the nearby town of Burton, is also dead after being shot on Sunday by responding police officers, eight minutes after the first emergency call was made, Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William Renye said.
Renye told a media conference on Sunday evening that two additional bodies had been “discovered in the church”, and that some people remained unaccounted for as “the entire church has not been cleared because it’s a total loss due to the fire”.

Fire investigator, James Deir, the special agent in charge of the Detroit Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), told the same media conference that investigations so far had indicated that the “suspect used an accelerant of some sort, we believe, gasoline, and lit the church on fire”.

Earlier, Renye said that one of the injured people was in a critical condition, while the other seven are stable. The wounded are being treated at the local Henry Ford Genesys Hospital, according to US media reports.

Hundreds of people were in the building for a Sunday morning service when the alleged gunman, whose motive remains unknown, ran a vehicle into the front door of the church, exited, and opened fire with an assault rifle, Renye added.

A four-door pick-up truck with two US flags displayed in the truck bed remained on the scene.